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Comment by Tomte | Hacker News Reader

I've tried DF ages ago, but it was simply too hard for me. I never really got into digging a fortress, already the first few minutes bounced me off.

Even read a DF book. No help.

I just bought it on Steam.

Probably I will never play it, but it's one of those purchases that are… aspirational. I'd like to be a person who plays DF. I know it's stupid.

But graphics and better onboarding are a real argument for me.

What tipped me finally over the edge towards buying was the background about the creator's health problems. I like that he's doing DF single-mindedly and I can afford the game without thinking twice.

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> I'd like to be a person who plays DF. I know it's stupid

Not stupid. The feeling of mastering a properly hard game is a good reason to try it.

I've used the same "strategy" for most technically challenging games: play in long stretches, trying to make any kind of progress. Have the wiki open and read it any time you are confused. Just keep trying to do _something_.

Eventually it will either click and you'll have a bunch of fun, or you'll tire out. If you tire out, just don't play the game again for a couple days, or whenever you regain your energy.

Once it clicks once, it will instantly start being fun. The interesting part is that the click happens multiple times with challenging games. I've been playing EVE for more than a year now and the combat system _still_ gives me huge revelations. Same with DF, once you learn how to get your fortress rolling you can very quickly learn to build a fully defensible mega castle. Then the next click is realizing that makes the game boring and allowing some danger by fulfilling self placed challenges.

edit: I just bought it and played it for a bit -- the updated graphics/UI are a great improvement! Obviously bit hard to judge but now there's proper icons indicating common actions (mine, cut trees), a tutorial.. give it a try!

Let me confirm the long stretches thing.

I learned DF by setting aside two weeks and playing ~16 hours a day. Was a piece of cake.

It's not the kind of game you can pick up with an hour here or there.

I learned like this too, though not quite so extreme. I was going to be somewhere with my laptop but no internet for about a week so I printed off an at-the-time popular strategy guide called something along the lines of "the absolute beginners guide to dwarf fortress". This was before the wiki existed! Anyhow, it worked out, as my build order still is vaguely reminiscent of what was in that guide, more than 10 years ago.

> I learned DF by setting aside two weeks and playing ~16 hours a day.

Now that's commitment.

That's way too much. It should take 3-4 hours tops. The most difficult thing is the ridiculous UI (press b then d then c, etc.) It's basically just a slightly more complicated AoE)

Nah, OP was right, it is stupid. I like hard games, but if you’re not getting any enjoyment out of it just give it. There are a million other things to do.

> I just bought it on Steam.

> Probably I will never play it

Even if you never end up playing it, it's worth buying it to support DF. We need more works of art that are a product of passion and vision and fewer that are just a clumsy, accidental byproduct of profit-seeking by way of mindless, manipulative psychological tactics.

> We need more works of art that are a product of passion and vision...

Can't agree more--look forward to the day when something better replaces capitalism.

Exactly this - I've bought a whole bunch of games I'm never likely to get more than a couple of hours into or even play at all but supporting the authors with a purchase gives a strong "I appreciate what you're doing" signal and, hopefully, encourages more of that kind of stuff (which only really works on indies, I know, but then those tend to be the people making interesting games.)

For those that can't play it but would still like to experience the joys of its flavor of generative art, there's a YT channel that interprets it and puts a story and illustration to his playthroughs:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXX7Rp0iXj0nPwER_CwBD...

Even without clicking, I knew it was Kruggsmash.

He's a fantastic artist, storyteller, and content creator.

Once during a job interview, when asked about an accomplishment I was personally proud of, I mentioned defeating Morgoth in Angband (the classic roguelike). I'll admit, not quite as hard as beating NetHack but it still required a lot of self control, because Cocky -> Lazy -> Stupid -> Dead.

Nice one, how did the interviewer react?

I knew my play failed when the interviewer asked me what that was? and i got a blank stare when i said it was like Nethack.

You didn't want to work there anyway.

i could have used the job, but no i wouldn't have been happy there

The assessment of Cocky -> Lazy -> Stupid -> Dead is spot on. I haven't gotten super far, but my last run ended because I saw a bunch of 'C' in the next room and didn't bother checking what they were - turns out gravity hounds have a pretty good stun lock. Out of curiosity, what class were you playing?

For what it's worth, if someone told me they beat Morgoth in an interview I'd probably hire them.

Thanks!

That's a classic scenario with the gravity hounds!

I was a human paladin. Took me a while to find it, but here is my place on the Angband ladder:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=5859

>I've tried DF ages ago, but it was simply too hard for me.

I still dig and irrigate farm chambers if there's a nearby river as though out of reflexive PTSD from that one time where the game required you to moisten soil before you can grow crops. (That hasn't been the case for a looong time, fortunately.)

I still (and probably always will) design fortresses with anti-"bug" features to prevent "unexpected fun". Grills on water inputs, preventing diagonals, all those things.

I feel like I'm one of those people that believes that a good game is one where you can learn and play the game well without ever having to leave the game itself.

For me games are an escape from reality and the moment I have to context switch and go look up something in an FAQ or read a guide just to be able to play a damn game I completely lose interest. I hate the idea that I'm having to study or work for the purposes of entertainment. Zero interest in memorizing inconsequential fictional information that only applies to a game. If I'm going to study it's going to be some thing that's applicable to the real world around me, Not some bull crap crafting recipes.

Games should always aspire to be self contained with the appropriate levels of guided discovery within the system itself.

You're looking for games for people who are already burned out from other work.

There are people who either don't work full time, don't work at all, or the games are their paid job who are completely fine to put as much effort in as a regular job. And there are people who want to watch these people play the game to a level of ability difficult for most to achieve.

I have a mentally very taxing job and often feel exhausted after work. I have my own projects I would love to work on in my spare time but I can rarely find the energy to do so. I've tried pushing myself, but that only results in migraines.

Instead, I watch TV or play games to relax. Dwarf Fortress is one of those games. It may sound counterintuitive but immersing myself in something like that, or a puzzle game, clears my mind and helps me wind down.

Not necessarily. DF could easily show you what the ore you found is for, what workshop a work order requires, warn you to create a pen before a meeting area so your cattle doesn't stand in your tavern until they starve, etc.

This is not necessarily about the richness of the game, it's about how you present information, and not merely accepting that a player will have to have an external wiki open or memorized and dwarf therapist running at all times to play the game.

The only success I've had is playing closely alongside a guide which is basically telling you every large scale and medium scale decision you should be making for years of in game time. Reminds me of Minecraft mods that get so complex that you need an entire questbook mod included just to teach players how to progress.

I'm like you, and I will buy it this evening although I never buy a game fullprice and I will probably never have the patience to play it

I’m currently in the phase of trying to figure out DF. Many hours of tinkering and reading has led me to digging tunnels and deep underground but I just get stuck trying to assign jobs and set up rooms and burrows. It’s very difficult. I WISH that they would make an interactive tutorial. That would significantly reduce the friction of onboarding new players. Apparently the steam version has one or is adding one. In my mind, this should have been a high ticket feature worked on and added years ago.

* Learn the basics with in-game tutorials

The steam version has added tutorials in-game for the first time. In the past many people used "guides" or such, but unless you started with the exact same seed/location, you'd often have to figure out things as you went.

https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/getting-started-with/97... was a decently well done guide for it's time.

Burrows are not something you need as a beginner unless you're doing something unusual. It's best to forget about the feature. For jobs, press (u)nits -> (z)oom -> (p)references -> (l)abors on your dwarves and adjust their professions, then queue up tasks at workshops.

I've played 3 4+ hour sessions over the last five years. Twice I hit bugs that caused save data lose and caused me to quit. Once I had a ton of fun and then some small issue caused my fortress to become unstable and all my dwarfs to die.

Hopefully its a bit more stable now. Would love to lose many more hours to this game.

The trick is to follow along with a YouTube tutorial/series. Really, that's all it takes.

It's development has been stopped a long time ago but have a look into gnomoria perhaps.

And the open source fork ingnomia

It's not so much a fork as an attempt to recreate it almost from scratch no? I don't think the source code was ever released.

you sound like me :-P

except I want to enjoy it... its sounds like something i will enjoy... also the new graphics are while simple... very pretty.

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